Too rural?

lostinrates

I just struggle to see a house situated two miles put of a village in a home county as a true drastic change tbh.

Lucky, best of both worlds and maybe requiring a lift to a station every now and then...but drastic?

moneyistooshorttomention

lostinrates wrote: »

I just struggle to see a house situated two miles put of a village in a home county as a true drastic change tbh.

Lucky, best of both worlds and maybe requiring a lift to a station every now and then...but drastic?

I get where you are coming from LIR. But...I personally would regard it that way. I've been used to being literally minutes away from good sources of foodshopping/transport to a pretty wide range of places/etc/etc....and that's "minutes when walking" and there does feel to be a huge change of emphasis when getting to THE first bit of "facilities" is 10 minutes walk and I rate that as "not right for me" for shopping facilities and I have to walk 15 minutes to get to better choice of shopping facilities and to get to wider range of "social facilities" would quite definitely mean I needed a car. It does depend on how much a person requires in the way of "social facilities" personally. Hmmm...though...on the other hand...I think I might have stood a rather better chance (when younger....) of finding the "right" type of man for me as a Permanent Partner than I did where I was living at the time (falls back in astonishment at just how different the men hereabouts seem to be on the Potential Partner front...as in I think they would take a bit of "training" to be rightforme....but probably have rather more potential than those in the area I came from).

littlemissy29

Thanks all for the responses -

I can see the great reasons to buy it, but maybe just cold feet over the not so great things as we get close the point of no return-

I guess it's just the NEED to get into the car each time we leave the house.

Response to a couple of questions further up-
The village is easily reached by bike, and our eldest of 2 children has just turned 4.
I think we will be fine and happy there- Maybe it's all just nerves of the change.

LM29.

makeyourdaddyproud

When it snows, you're gunna lose weight for sure.

So there's some advantages.

scaredlady

We actually live in a village exactly like this.Nice bits..
coming back from a big scary noisy town and being able to stand in the fresh air.
views.
When we had snow a couple of years ago some one built an igloo on the village hall grounds.
not so nice bits.
we are on lpg...cannot change supplier as you lease the tanks,so stuck with them and their prices. Also they can sometimes be a little slow in the refils. Have had 2 Christmas's where we were down to tiny bit left in 1 tank...they finally came 2 days after Christmas...
Services (electric/phone) tends to be o/head..so merest whiff of a thunderstorm and the power goes.
The fact that I don't really drive (long story) so rely on OH to go anywhere.
Not somewhere you can grow old.
We will move somewhere else not so rural in the future.

RedfordML

indsty wrote: »

Having lived in a very rural area for a long time there are a lot of issues that can come up. Yes, it is idyllic in good weather - but think about all the school runs in the dark winter nights, children can't go anywhere without a car, does the lady of the house mind being on her own in the middle of nowhere in a Force 8 gale and the power goes off.

It is just what some people want and love and they thrive, others find they have made a mistake - only you know which type of people you are. Can you think of it as a "3 year project" - knowing you will move if it proves too difficult?

The second paragraph is spot on.

I personally couldnt handle the lack of aminities close by (walking distance) and love town living. Also, the worst part will be when the frost sets in and roads are not gritted, could be long spells when your stuck in the house?

gl with the move, as above, some people thrive in living very isolated and love the peace, think to yourself what you really want?

lostinrates

RedfordML wrote: »

The second paragraph is spot on.

I personally couldnt handle the lack of aminities close by (walking distance) and love town living. Also, the worst part will be when the frost sets in and roads are not gritted, could be long spells when your stuck in the house?

gl with the move, as above, some people thrive in living very isolated and love the peace, think to yourself what you really want?

I live three miles from nearest village with further from nearest town. We HAVE had a ba car accident in ice, but we're colder than the south east. We've also never been snowed in ( though do drive. Four by four).

In our last home lots of put neighbours WERE snowed in. . It was great only because DH got stuck at home, not away from home, and our land rover could still get out and about, so we were doing trips to vets/supermarkets/GPs for half the village and outlying houses.......homes where people have lived twenty years before and since with out ever needing such help.

Its quite rare in most of south of England, rarer still nearer civilisation like Home Counties...or at least, those of us outside them would consider lots of the conditions mild , I do appreciate these things can be relative.

Op, the isolation is part of the clue of your home

If it doesn't work after a few years then move. Learn to be organised In Shops so you need o take the car out less, in winter keep a week or so worth of dry goods (pasta/ tinned tomatoes/ things that can be made should you not be able OR WANT TO to get out and keep this stocks up till spring. .make all your trips mean something...so go to the supermarket after dropping t nursery, them to library with littlest, not lots of separate journeys. . It will all soon make sense.

Is there a village hall where stuff goes on? Especially for kids? Or a play ground? Two miles is not too far to walk pushing a push chair or for lots of four year olds who can have a nice play ful break then a snack, then walk back . It happens round here all the time.


I'm sure you'll make a very happy home

krlyr

I grew up in a similar sounding house/location. As someone who's been through it as a child, I can say it does create a different lifestyle - but not necessarily in a negative way.

Due to the location and the particular roads, we were never really allowed to walk or cycle to school, and the nearest bus stop was pretty much 3/4 of the way to school anyway, so we always went by car. Perhaps we missed out on some of the social interaction of walking to/from school with friends, but I never felt that way at the time.

It also meant things like walking to a friend's house or walking into town at the weekend wasn't that feasible. We relied on lifts, but with both parents driving and two cars in the house, it was rare we couldn't get a ride somewhere.

Friends loved coming to ours, because it was a novel kind of house, with plenty of outdoor space to play in dry weather. Come colder weather, my parents converted the loft into a bit of a games room that us kids disappeared off to.

I think due to the location and not being able to just nip out with friends, we engaged in family activities, games, crafts, etc. to keep amused. None of us grew up to be massive social butterflies, though my one brother who went to Uni certainly lived the typical student life once he was there! I think it kept us out of trouble, and we were never really bored.

It never really seemed that unusual to us - we were aware that most houses did actually have central heating and double glazing (brr, it could be chilly!) unlike our remote little farm cottage (and the fields surrounding us really let the chill pick up and blow in), but it had so many perks. The farm was our playground, the private lane our own bike track (my brothers were very into BMXing and built their own jumps etc.), and the massive garden meant we were all quite outdoorsy kids.

I loved the house so much that I ended up moving back in to it when I was older, with two of my brothers, we took over the tenancy when my mum bought a place with my stepdad. It was a fantastic place for my dogs, and I have to say that I do really miss it. If I had the money, I'd buy it in a heartbeat (not sure OH would be quite so keen though!)


There were some downsides - we were late to school several times due to being stuck behind the farmer's tractor, or having to wait for him to finish moving the herd of cows. The odd fallen tree, occasional courier van misjudging and needing a tow out of the ditch at the side of the lane, and in the snow the 'main' road it led out on to was rarely gritted (my mum did write off a car in an unfortunate accident - ice hidden under the snow on a sharp S bend, car approaching us had the same issue and slid straight into each other) but I don't recall us ever being totally stranded (and in my latter years of living there, my little '93 Micra managed the roads just fine!). There was no gas, so as long as we didn't have any powercuts we were OK (infact, my dad kept a generator as a backup - there used to be more powercuts when we were younger, but to be honest these grew rarer and rarer as we got older). The cold weather did draw the rats and mice in from the fields, so we had to be careful with food waste and rubbish to prevent infestations, and it was a difficult house to keep clean because of the dust blowing in in the summer, and mud being tracked in in winter. Like I said, it did get pretty cold due to no central heating (all oil-filled radiators, or a real log fire) or double glazing (original sash windows weren't the most draught-free iether), but we learnt to wear two pairs of gloves and thick jumpers.

For me, the downsides were far outweighed by the perks. For others, perhaps not. I know when he moved in, the mice freaked my OH out a bit, not being desensitized to it like me and my brothers! And he certainly prefers being nearer to shops/amenities, but overall he quite liked the quietness and privacy of the location, even if the house wasn't quite to his taste.

moromir

lostinrates wrote:

Its quite rare in most of south of England, rarer still nearer civilisation like Home Counties...or at least, those of us outside them would consider lots of the conditions mild , I do appreciate these things can be relative.

I'd strongly disagree with this - Essex here and barely a year goes by without some form of being stuck in the house, be it a storm (this year), a flood (twice last year) and snow (several over my life time).

Doesn't really bother me but its definitely not 'uncommon' down here, perhaps because we're even less prepared for it!

clark24

I was born in central London, grew up in greater London and now live in a cottage on a cow farm in a very rural part of the Scottish Borders with my husband, 2 kids and 4 pets, and I LOVE it! I wouldn't go back to city life if you paid me, none of us would! Surrounding our house is fields and woodland, my kids can run about in the fresh air in privacy and safety. Yes it's a trek through the woods to the primary school (a mile away) or the very few shops (just over a mile) and the deer nibble my shrubs and a badger has dug a hole by my vegetable garden but we love it, it's beautiful and peaceful and after the busy, smelly, overcrowded and hideous convenience of where I grew up, to see my son happily watching the tractors and the cows, my daughter visiting the horses over the field and getting excited when they now recognise her and trot over to see her, to sit out of an evening looking up at the pure blackness of the sky and the millions of stars (no light pollution here) and there being no noise apart from snuffling wild animals and the occasional moo, well you can keep your 24/7 shops (we can drive to those if we wish, but we rarely do) and your yobs and crime and pollution, rural life is pure heaven!